Guv's Girl
by SassyJ
Summary: Things are about to get worse. A lot worse. Rated T, which may change, depending on how smutty things get.
1. Chapter 1

_My name is Gene Hunt. DCI Gene Hunt, one of the Met's finest, and I seem to be in the middle of a nightmare. According to the posh mouthy tart, the one wished on me as my new DI, I am an "imaginary construct" who can't feel or think for himself. I am just a figment of her imagination. Well, I wish she was a figment of mine, half the time I don't know whether to kiss or kill the dozy bird. She's slapped me a few times, so I know I'm awake, and the air could be rent at any time by her dulcet tones, she has the shriek of an Intercity 125 coming off the rails._

_So in what way could life possibly get worse? What grand plan did the good lord have for me, because I fear I have failed most of the tests set miserably so far..._

_But there was worse to come._

_It turned up, one afternoon, 1981, winter, about tea time. Why do all these things show up at tea time._

_It was sopping wet, and in a very, very bad mood._

_Oh good lord, why me?_

She was freezing cold, every stitch was soaked through due to her impromptu swim in the river and she was feeling very angry. She read the transcripts, seen the tapes and worked her own way around the story, taken it home as a bit of night time reading because she was bored. Now she recognised the hallmarks. Somehow, it had got under her skin. She knew where she was, and she didn't like it one little bit. _Imaginary construct. Bollocks._

She picked her way past the dilapidated fence, walked up the garden path, and knocked. As her knuckles connected with the front door, she had a moment to wonder if he would be in. It was Sunday, he might have been at work.

He answered the door.

Gene Hunt was just settling down in front of the telly for final score and a bit of peace and quiet, when there was a loud knock at the door. _Bolly?_ He thought he recognised the aggressive summons. He opened the door.

_Big mistake._

He was face to face with a tall young woman who was soaking wet, not dressed in very much, and appeared to be very angry. Why she should be angry was something that he wondered about for a brief second before she spoke.

"PC Caroline Hunt, at your service," her sarcastic tone registered and his hackles began to rise. "I know you're going to think that I've lost my mind, so feel free to add your ten p's worth at any time."

She poked him in the chest with a long finger. "I'm your daughter, Cat. Only," she smiled conspiratorily, "that will have to be our little secret, because according to records, I haven't even been born yet." She winked at him and pushed past into the hall.

He stood there, open mouthed. First Sam, then Bolly, now this. He turned round. The problem was, he could see the truth in what she was saying, the eyes that were looking back at his, _it was like looking in a mirror_, her hair was the same colour as his, her heart shaped face, and pointed chin had clearly come from her mother, and the shape of her mouth. 

Gene groaned, he might not be an educated genius like Sam or Bolly, but there were enough clues in front of him for even a blind dog to follow. He cast an exasperated eye upwards.

_Dear Lord. If this is another test. Or if you are just trying to drive me stark bollocking mad, lord? Please let this nightmare pass from me. Because I'm looking my female mirror image in the eye, and I have the bloody awful feeling I know who her mother is. And right now, one insane, crazed, crack-brained fruit bat with the common sense of a grasshopper is quite enough. But if you really have been this cruel, lord. Please don't let this one sound quite like the other one... please._


	2. Chapter 2

_Okay, lord. You seem determined to play games with me. One at a time, I can handle, two is pushing it._

Gene was fast losing patience. He stood up, slammed his hands down on the desk, and leant over, eyeball to eyeball with the source of his annoyance. _Two can play at this game_ he thought grimly.

"WPC Hunt. You are a plonk. Plonks do not do the rough stuff." He broke off "Is that my shirt?" he demanded, momentarily distracted. "My wardrobe, like my Quattro, is off limits" he snarled in a lower tone, dimly aware that their argument was being watched by the entire room. His office door might be closed, but the goldfish bowl he'd been given had no privacy. Her sardonic grin did nothing to lower his blood pressure.

"I'm here to do a job, get over it!" She was under his skin and she knew it, and she wasn't giving an inch. "I'm faster, stronger, better equipped to deal with this and you know it."

"NO!" he leaned forward, trying to emphasize the point.

"YES!" she bellowed back. "I'm the best one for the job and you know it."

The door opened.

"**WHAT!**" they bellowed in unison.

"I was just wondering when we were going to do this?" DI Alex Drake looked at her watch pointedly. "Preferably before we're all drawing our Pensions." She simpered sweetly.

_Oh sweet charity! Lord. Two of them. Can you possibly make one of them less of a nuisance? Because I am going to fail this test, too, lord. I am going to lamp seven bells out of one of them by the end of the day._

Cat walked out of his office, hips swaying, she hitched the black shirt up a little further over her hips, adjusting the belt which emphasized her firm buttocks and drew attention to her long legs; she could feel his narrowed gaze watching her, she swayed her hips a little more. The muttered oath was beneath his breath, but she heard it _loud and clear._ She smiled. 

* * *

DS Raymond Carling was loving every second of the floor show. WPC Caroline Hunt was hot stuff. Hotter even than DI Drake at her most provocative.

Despite the DCI's protestations, that WPC Hunt was no relation, Ray, Chris and Shaz had put their heads together and figured out that she must be his daughter. _Okay, it was Shaz who figured it, but we all agreed._ Cat Hunt, the feline clue in her name, those eyes, her temper. She looked like him and sounded like him. Stood next to each other, as he introduced her to the room, their expressions of cool watchfulness were the same. This was not exactly rocket science (as Shaz had explained to them).

"Right then ladies, gather round. DI Drake is going to tell us all a bedtime story." Gene Hunt had recovered his customary self assurance.

"The objective today is one Charles Groman." DI Alex Drake went through her routine. She'd traced every move. And she was completely in accord with WPC Hunt. Cat was the best and most physically suited to climbing up three stories, getting in a small window and coming round behind the mark. "Ray and Chris will be here," she indicated on the map behind her, "DCI Hunt and I will be here, and WPC Hunt..."she fixed her boss with that look "will be climbing in the back and taking point from behind." Ignoring the sniggers from Carling and Skelton, she met his thunderous gaze with a bland look of her own.

"One change. DC Skelton will be making like a monkey, WPC Hunt will be with DS Carling in the car here." His glare dared her to challenge him. Alex opened her mouth to argue, but something in his unusually icy gaze cut her off. "Fire up the Quattro." He drew on his leather driving gloves and stalked out without a backward glance.

Puzzled as to why she should care so much about what an imaginary construct should think, and slightly stunned as to why she should suddenly feel agreement with him, Alex followed him out. 

* * *

It didn't go according to plan. Groman had slipped through their fingers again. Drug dealer, sometime arms dealer, he was a truly nasty piece of work, and Hunt's snout had put a major deal going down on Hunt's Manor. Something Gene Hunt was not about to allow.

He rounded on his team. Stabbing a finger at Skelton's chest "I name you Dis." he swung to Carling "and Aster!" Ignoring their outraged looks, he swung round to his DI.

"What the hell was that!"

"A perfectly valid plan!" Alex felt outraged. He'd changed the plan. It was his responsibility but he was handing it off on her.

"If Chris had got into position." Ray sounded sulky.

"Hey, don't blame me, you weren't there." Skelton scowled at his partner and long time friend.

"If you were half the man I am!" Ray rounded on his partner.

"He is half the man you are." Cat's contribution made them all glare at her. "If you'd been a bit quicker on your feet, if he'd made that climb in time, and...not fogetting" she turned to her DCI "if you two" she flicked a glance at her DI "had been there on time in position and you had let me do what I'm good at. Just maybe, we might have made it."

Gene held on to his temper with an effort. He was going to get it from above, and right now he needed the team to pull together. The days of effort, getting the entire thing set up, now it was blown out of the water. Square one. _Bollocks._

"Right. It's knocking off time." he snarled, "we're going to go away and come back to this fresh tomorrow."

He'd rarely felt so tired. _Jeez, it's not the years, it's the mileage._ "Come on you lot." 

Not caring if any of them were following, he turned to walk out. 


	3. Chapter 3

Bolly had drifted off somewhere, _Evan I presume,_ he gazed moodily at the bottle in front of him, Cat had disappeared somewhere and the shrieks of laughter from the rest of the team as they played some ridiculous game involving cards and drinks served only to irritate him. Draining the rest of his glass, he picked up the bottle, "Luigi. Night." Avoiding the old Italian's curious look, he ducked out of the restaurant and headed for the street.

He headed for the car, feeling lower than he had for a long time. _Bolly's lost to me, I've pushed her away this time for sure._ He hunched deeper into his coat trying to warm away the chill feeling that was seeping into his bones.

Something connected with his head just behind his right ear, a black pool opened up at his feet and he dived in.

* * *

Ray Carling and Chris Skelton reeled out into the street. Chris had a proprietorial arm round Shaz Granger's shoulders, they'd been inseparable since the stabbing incident. Spotting the red Quattro still parked up, they paused.

Chris felt slightly uncomfortable, _the stabbing drove a wedge between the Guv and the DI, just as they were starting to ..._ He struggled for the right word. Truth be told, he didn't really know what the Guv and the DI had, but he instinctively knew that it was something worth fighting for. _And the one thing the Guv was good at doing was fighting. He was the Manc Lion, for pity's sake_. Chris might not notice much, but the sadness in the DCI's face whenever he looked at DI Drake, especially when he thought no one was looking, was something that was not lost on DC Chris Skelton. He might only be a humble DC, but even he could tell that the Guv was sad and lonely. He looked sideways at Shaz, and she squeezed his hand.

Ray was drunk, but not so drunk that he didn't notice the smashed bottle on the pavement, He walked over unsteadily and picked it up. It was the wine that the Guv usually drank.

The three of them huddled together, sobering rapidly, whatever had gone down here, they'd seen the Guv heading for his car a good hour ago.

* * *

Alex Drake was having a bad evening. Not that Evan was bad company, it was simply that she was. Since she'd pushed him away from her after the stabbing, Gene had avoided being alone with her in any context that wasn't strictly work. Even in the car today, he'd been distant and a bit preoccupied. Since the arrival of Cat, the group dynamic had changed, and Alex didn't know how to get back into the game again. _It's wonderful being a psychologist, I get to make all the mistakes, and not know how to fix them._ A couple of times she'd caught an unguarded look on Gene's face, the pain in his eyes took her breath away. She'd caused that pain, and so wrapped up in her own pain and distress, she pushed him away when he'd needed her. He turned himself inside out _for me_, she acknowledged, he tried to be what she wanted him to be; and she'd tried to make him over in the image of a noughties police officer. _And it had all ended really badly._ She'd wanted to believe that her way was superior, that her education could replace years of instinct. But that was her world, this was his.

The part that hurt her the most right now was the knowledge that everything she had done, while for all the right reasons, was ultimately wrong. And it wasn't even her that had paid the price of her ignorance, Shaz had been stabbed, Chris and Ray had taken the pain and fear they felt out on the suspect Gil, and Gene had suffered more than most. He'd jumped through hoops on the Police 5 show, talking about things that he didn't understand and didn't believe in, because he believed in her. She'd taken that belief and crushed it with betrayal. The gloating of Evan and her mother made her feel physically sick, even now as she smiled at Evan across the table and toyed with a breadstick, bile rose in her throat as she recalled her confrontation with Gene outside the station. _It must have seemed like the coup de grace._

She was here with Evan now, smiling and outwardly happy and drinking toast after toast. She badly wanted to be home. Home so that she could lick her wounds. To try and figure out how she could make it up to Gene, _and to the rest of them,_ but most especially to her Manc Lion, who'd only tried to be what she wanted.

_To do harm here won't help me get back to Molly._ She painted a smile on her face, and tried to forget the gloating in Evan's face as Gene was humiliated in front of them all. _Even Ray tried to square off to me._ She acknowledged the truth of the accusation flung at her, not the accusation itself exactly, but the sentiment behind it; her own certainty had taken a real bashing.

_WPC Cat Hunt_, the younger woman bothered her. A lot. Feisty and confident, she was like a mixture of them both, Gene's toughness and Alex's self assurance. _And she's pretty._ Alex pondered a moment whether she was in fact Gene's daughter, as station gossip would have it, but Gene had denied it, and Alex accepted his version, unwilling to examine her response to the jealousy she felt when the two Hunts fought loudly and openly, their mutual tension plain to all. She sighed inwardly as Evan indicated to the waiter to give them another bottle. She lifted her glass, painted another smile on her face and tamped down on thoughts of agonised blue eyes boring into her soul. 

* * *

Cat bounced on her toes, limbering up. As long as she was here, and as yet the reason she was in this place was unclear to her, she needed to keep in peak physical condition. So, when she'd walked away from her team mates at the end of the day, she'd gone straight to one of her favourite places. She powered up and down the pool under the power of sheer naked aggression, length after length fell beneath her onslaught, until the water flowing over her limbs began to calm her, and she switched to a different stroke. She stayed until closing time, and then walked around the corner to the little boxing club she'd found. The owner and manager, Jock, a strange little Scot, had at first tried to tell her that this was no place for a lady, but she'd persisted and when he'd grudgingly given in and allowed her to square up to the dangling punch bag, his jaw had dropped.

She stood before it now, aggression mostly washed away, but now her need was to focus, she moved slowly, rhythmically, building up speed and force, every powerful calculated punch doing what it was supposed to do. She switched sides without breaking the rhythm and kept going. She 'd been ready for today, and was needing the work out to run down the unfulfilled tension in her body. 

* * *

Gene's head was splitting, he was cold and his wrists were sore. He tried to roll to a new position, but something was preventing him. He opened an eye. He was lying on the floor of what appeared to be a small room, there were pipes running through it, and his wrists had been handcuffed round a pipe. This pipe was short and close to the floor, holding him in the unnatural position in which he'd obviously been lying for sometime. Using the pipe as leverage, he tried to drag himself into a sitting position. _Shit...that hurt_. He examined his wrists and the handcuffs; whoever had done it, he knew what he was doing, Gene figured that the cuffs were one click away from tendon damage, too tight for him to have the ghost of a chance of wriggling out of them, not tight enough to really do any major damage, just enough to bruise his wrists and remind him of their existence.

He looked away from his most immediate problem and checked out the rest of his predicament. It did not look good. The whole place smelt of must and damp, and the water marks above his head had not gone unnoticed.

"Mr Hunt."

The voice came from somewhere above and off to his left, Gene turned as far as the pipes and handcuffs would let him.

"I am sorry to say that you will play no further part in these proceedings, indeed if your team do anything to try and interfere, they will be looking for a new Chief." Gorman was standing there, the half smile that Gene could see on his face made the Manc Lion want to tear him limb from limb. _Play it cool Gene Genie or you'll be going home in a box._

"Oh I wouldn't say that, Mr Gorman, the fat lady hasn't sung yet." Gene may have been cold, wet and sore, but he wasn't finished. And he had no intention of allowing this bastard any more of an upper hand than he already had.

_Bugger it Bolly, it's all down to you._ He was in serious trouble, and right then, he wasn't sure if he was going to be able to get himself out of it. His life now lay in the hands of a woman he was sure hated him. 


	4. Chapter 4

_I know some folk are probably thinking that I've forgotten my other fic, but I haven't, honest. Somehow this one just came out of the stall, landed running and hasn't stopped since. And I'm exercising (yes, I do mean exercising) some pretty heavy duty demons here._

_So, Gene's missing, what are they going to do about it?_

* * *

Alex's hands trembled, and her palms were sweating as she struggled to make sense of what she was reading. The note had been found, in the pocket of Gene's overcoat, which had been left on the front steps of the station.

The four lines were sinister in design and calculated to freeze her brain and paralyze her instincts. She dimly acknowledged that they were doing their job rather too well. If they did nothing and let Gorman's business go ahead unmolested, the Guv would be released. If they interfered in any way, he would die.

She could feel all eyes on her. Panic was rising. They'd lost all faith in her, she couldn't lead them, it was his leadership that held the whole team together and without him they were rudderless.

"I hope you are as smart as we're all hoping you are" Ray stood in front of her, "cos right now the Guv needs you to be smart." Alex looked into his eyes, dreading the scorn she had seen before, but there wasn't, just a combination of challenge and pleading as he willed her to keep the faith. "We need you to be smart." Ray's voice dropped, _the Guv's given up so much for this woman, now he really needs her_... His thoughts trailed off, because there really wasn't anything else he could say or think.

Alex looked him in the eye, and silently acknowledged the challenge, and the plea. She nodded.

Turning back towards her desk, she gathered herself together. "We need intelligence. We know where the meet was, it will have moved. Chris, Ray, shake down all your snouts, see if anything falls out." She turned back towards them, looking around the room, "We haven't much time."

* * *

Ray and Chris were doing what they knew best, turning over snouts. It was tough going, some of the Guv's regular contacts were evasive and somewhat scornful of their best efforts, their presence being somewhat less commanding.

Between them, they'd turned up two leads; the deal was going down that night, and it was somewhere along the river.

One of their last stops was a strange little man called Kelly. He was an Irishman, a strange insignificant little man, but he had a long standing relationship with the Guv and if anyone knew anything it would be he.

Kelly knew something. The way he jumped and fled at the sight of them. Ray sighed. "Your turn." Chris scowled at his partner, "it's always my turn when it comes to chasing them down." He reluctantly got out of the car.

Kelly had quite a head start, but Chris was younger, and in slightly better shape, and aggravation lent him wings. He caught up with the little Irishman as he was trying to scale a wall he didn't really have a hope of making.

"Mr Skelton, indeed I know nothing." the little man tried to smile in what he hoped was an innocent manner.

"Kelly, first you ran at the sight of us, secondly..." Chris struggled to think of what exactly the secondly was, _the Guv would have the right words for the occasion_. He wished the Guv was here right now. This was like free fall with no parachute.

The sound of the car pulling up behind them saved Chris having to think of a witty comeback. DS Carling was more the straightforward punch-'im-in-the-'ead type. He'd get the answers without the need for banter.

Ray gathered two big handfuls of Kelly's jacket in his hands. He wasn't much taller than the other man, but outweighed him by several stone. The Irishman's nerve snapped like a dry twig. Moments later they had all they needed to know.

* * *

After a lengthy, and very awkward, search through his pockets, Gene had come to two conclusions, firstly that whoever had handcuffed him to the pipe had been very thorough, every one of his pockets was empty, which included the little lock pick he always kept about his person, and that they'd also missed one vital trick, no one had checked his boots. He couldn't think why, _those socks were clean on yesterday._ But they'd left him one tiny little lifeline, and it was very tiny.

The minute pocket knife lay in his palm. It was very small, and didn't seem up to very much, but he took comfort from its presence.

First order was to get himself upright. He had no reason to suppose that the room would flood any higher than the watermarks on the walls above his head. He'd studied the pipework, and gantries above his head, the pipe which he was cuffed to was low down to the ground, but provided he could squeeze through the gap in front of him and undo the screw retaining a bracket to the pipe, he would be able to move his hands up along the pipe and eventually, _he hoped,_ get up onto the gantry above his head. Which would mean that even if the water rose, he would only be, at worst, waist deep in it.

For a large man to squeeze through the very small gap in front of him was no mean feat, and it took fifteen minutes of struggling and wriggling to manage it. He banged his knuckles and his wrists had taken most of the brunt of his struggles, but it was worth it, the bend in the pipe now meant he could get to his feet, albeit still bent over. He slid the cuffs along to the first bracket, opening the little penknife blade, he started to try to undo the screw retaining the bracket to the pipe. It was there he had his second piece of luck, the screw was already loose. He slid the cuffs along again. Now he was able to stand upright.

It was then he noticed that the water was rising, not by much as yet, but it was now well above his ankles, and his boots leaked. Gene cursed the freezing cold and filthy water, his toes were freezing, his fingers and wrists were sore and bruised, but he was still alive and that was what counted. He was not going to be beaten by this scumbag. The cold was getting to him, his movements were clumsier now, and the not inconsiderable pain in his wrists from all the contortions and stress he'd placed on the cuffs was hampering his progress. He had to work faster and smarter, not harder.

The next step took almost half an hour. He was slowing, but he pressed on, sheer determination to survive driving him hard. Each time a bracket gave way he was a little closer to his goal, the gantry.

He climbed on the pipe with some difficulty, he would have to lift his hands above his head and hook the cuffs over the bend onto straight pipe above his head, so that he could lift his legs over the railing on the gantry. He took a closer look at the pipe and judged the distance. _Shit, this is going to hurt_, he calculated the height of the pipe and realised that at some point, his full weight was going to be hanging from his already brutally abused wrists, even keeping a grip with his hands to lift his weight off his wrists was going to be well nigh impossible. _Best do it without thinking about it._

_SHIT_, it was agony, his full weight bearing down on the cuffs, the metal digging cruelly into the flesh of his wrists; ignoring the pain, he stretched out a leg, and swung it over the railing, a supreme effort and he managed to slip down to stand upright on the gantry. And realised he could go no further. The pipe he was attached to, soared away above his head, straight up and disappeared into a box a full fifteen feet above him.

He'd achieved his first objective, which was to avoid drowning. His second was going to be _lamping seven bells of hell out of that scumbag Gorman._ He'd promised himself, and no one was going to deprive him of the pleasure.

* * *

_It's all up to you now Bolly. Come and find me._

So now they knew the where, and the when, but not whether the Guv was alive or dead.

_He's alive. Because that's the only way I can see it._ Alex had fought the clown once, for Shaz. She'd won, and she was going to win this one, because she needed to make things up to him. _You're going to live Gene Hunt, because I need you. I don't want to need you, and I don't understand why I do need you, but you're in my brain and my heart and I can't let go. If I let go of you, I'll have to let go of Molly. All of this is for my daughter. _Even in her head her own words sounded fake. She needed Gene Hunt for other more basic reasons, but right then and there the only needs she was going to acknowledge were the ones she already had.


	5. Chapter 5

_They have a plan. But that plan isn't going to work, because someone is going to have to go in the back, and that means that someone will have to get across the river unseen._

"This isn't going to work. If we all go charging in the front, they'll be slitting the Guv's throat before we can even get there." Cat poured scorn on the plan. "On the other hand, if I can get across the river, I can climb in here..." she indicated on the surveillance photo, "and get round behind them, find him before they can get to him."

Alex didn't like it. "It's February."

"Wetsuit."

"They'll be expecting trouble."

"I'll be armed."

"We should stick to my plan."

"We can't afford to. We have to be creative."

Alex glared at the younger woman. She didn't like splitting them up, as it was they would be double teaming it, and that left Cat exposed on her own. But she agreed that they had to do something creative and fast. They were out of time, if the deal went down, she knew that Gorman would never let Gene live.

She gave in with bad grace.

"Get a wetsuit organised, be out front in one hour..." Cat turned to go, "Oh...and Cat ...take care." Alex felt responsible for the younger woman in a way that surprised her. _She gets under my skin, I have no idea why I should even be entertaining this plan, but its the only one we've got. Oh god Gene, hang on._ Every time she thought about what might have been done to him, she felt sick and paralysed with her fear. Ray was right, she couldn't afford the luxury of paralysis now, if they were going to save his life, they were all relying on her, Gene's life was in her hands. "I won't fail." She whispered "I won't...I can't...because the only way I can see you in my head, you're alive." He was more alive than anyone she'd ever known, strong, overwhelmingly male, and with a superiority complex that made her want to scream and throw herself headlong into his arms, howling and biting like a wild thing. _Around Gene I just can't control myself, I've never been this aggressive, almost hysterical, he clouds my senses, sends my judgement spinning off into oblivion, and I've never loved any man more in my life._

That last thought was too much. She put her hands up to her flushed cheeks, _this can't be, at what point did I stop disliking this unreconstructed Neanderthal and my hate turn to love._ That she loved him there was no doubt, _but I can't, if I love him I'm going to lose, I have to go back to Molly, and leave my heart behind._ A sad empty feeling settled over her, the tears running down her cheeks, she wept for her loss.

A hand on her shoulder made her jump, it was Ray. To her surprise, he said nothing, just put his arms around her and let her cry it all out, he gently held her until she was calmer, then handed her a large handkerchief. "Don't let the others see you like this, Ma'am. We're all relying on you." His words gave her comfort, and she looked him straight in the eye. "I won't fail, Ray." She said, "I can't."

"I know Ma'am." There wasn't the slightest hint of anything disrespectful in his gaze, or words, and she took comfort in her own surprise, perhaps there was more to DS Ray Carling than the ability to bounce criminals' heads off the Quattro's paintwork. The thought came to her unbidden, and she wondered why, if Gene was so careful of the paintwork on his beloved car, that he would allow Ray to use it to quell suspects. The thought brought a smile to her face for the first time in a very long time.

Cat was angry, and frustrated. She'd gone down to stores, wetsuits they had a plenty. Suitable wetsuits, zero.

"It's a moon lit night, open water, can be viewed by anyone who happens to look out the window, thus the element of surprise is vital," she snarled at the hapless store Sergeant, "**AND ALL YOU CAN OFFER ME IS A WETSUIT IN VERMILLION!**" She shook the offending item to emphasise the point. "I MIGHT WAS WELL PUT ON A CLOWN SUIT AND DANCE UP AND DOWN OUTSIDE WAVING MY TAMBOURINE!!" She snorted in frustration. Turning smartly on her heel and she walked away, leaving the Sergeant sighing with relief at her departure.

"Talk about chip off the old block!" his assistant emerged from behind the racks where he'd been hiding.

"I wouldn't know. Nobody here tells me nothing." The Sergeant scratched his head.

They moved into their positions. For once there were no jokes, this was the Guv's life that they were playing with, and this was going to go by the book.

Across the river, Cat slid into the icy water, the suit did its job, but its bright colour was a problem, she didn't know whether to take it slow and trust she wouldn't be seen, or chance it and give it all she had, hoping that no one would notice the splashing.

She decided on the latter course of action, using the power and speed of her swim to focus her mind solely on her target, because it was up to her, she had to get in and find him, before the others hit the front.

Gene Hunt was cold, wet, bruised and sore, and in a very bad mood. His frustration in being unable to pick the locks on the cuffs was only increased by his burning desire to teach Gorman a lesson he would be unlikely to forget. He sat on the gantry railing, and tried to give his wrists, arms and shoulders a rest from his struggles to free himself. He was a mess, his clothes wet and filthy, quite apart from the bruises, particularly on the backs of his wrists, there was a nasty weeping gasp on the back of his left wrist where the handcuff bracelet had caught his watch and they'd both sliced into his wrist, his knuckles were all bruised and scraped and he had a bruise where he'd hit his head on the overhead pipe.

But, he hadn't drowned as Gorman had hoped, he wasn't lying in ten inches of filthy cold water, he was sitting high, if not exactly dry, on the gantry railing. _Score One to me._ He settled himself and made another try at picking the cuffs with the tiny little penknife.

Alex was getting impatient, she knew she had to give Cat a chance to get in, but she was aware that they were running on a very tight time clock.

She was sorely tempted to just go. The strain of waiting was killing her. But there was at least another five to ten minutes, Chris had radio'd through that he'd seen Cat climbing up to the back of the building.

Cat was in a hurry, the swim had been harder than she'd thought, _the river is after all, tidal, dumb idiot._ She found a vent cover which appeared to be loose, _thank god for terminal rust,_ and gave it an experimental yank, it yielded a little, she yanked harder, the squeal sounded really loud to her ears, she held her breath.

Nothing happened, no shouts, no running feet, no gunfire. She pulled out her gun, and prepared to wriggle through the gap. It was a tightish fit and she grunted as the bolt cutters she'd stuck in her belt snagged on the edge of the gap. She worked her way inside, it was cold and wet, the damp ceiling dripped on her head, and there was an unpleasant smell of must. She reached a grating and peered through. A room full of pipes and machinery, she couldn't hear anything on the inside, but the pipes would provide cover, she pushed hard on the grating and was rewarded with a small gap which she could just about slither through. Crouching in the foot of cold dirty water on the floor, she looked around. The room was large, with pipes going everywhere. She slipped from cover, and scurried diagonally across.

"About bloody time." A voice hissed somewhere off to her left. "I was just beginning to think that you'd forgotten me."

Cat swung round. He was right there in front of her.

"Dad!"

He held out his hands, "well stop mouthing like a stranded goldfish, y'dozy plonk, uncuff me."

She reached inside her wetsuit, and pulled the key over her head, fumbling with it, her hands shaking with cold and stress. She managed to get one cuff open, and he snatched the key from her before she could fumble with the other.

"I've got it," he took the cuffs off, massaging his left wrist, "shit that hurts...never mind...gun?" he held out his hand, she handed him his magnum, "right, before we are knee deep in scumbags, we need to put a stop to this."

Meekly Cat followed him, _who's saving who?_


End file.
